Villainous Rescue

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Aang: When Zhao had me chained up, it was Zuko who came and got me out. He risked his life to save me. Katara: No way! I'm sure he only did it so he could capture you himself! Sokka: Yeah, face it, Aang — You're nothing but a big prize to him.

And of course it's always possible that it isn't a rescue at all. The villain gave the hero a Hope Spot, the relief of escaping from their enemies, so it's possible for them to destroy that hope.

Not to be confused with Save the Villain when a hero saves a bad guy or Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work when the bad guys do something that the good guys were too squeamish to do or the writers just didn't want them do. Overlaps with Enemy Mine, as it can be how such a situation begins, but not all instances of bad guys helping good guys falls into this category. May also be a case of Terrifying Rescuer until the heroes figure out what's really going on. Can result in Out of the Frying Pan, if the rescuer proves to be a worse threat than whatever they rescued the heroes from.

Early in the second season, Suo has a series of Contractors trying to capture her, who "save" her from each other. In this case, Hei starts out hunting her as well (like the others, he thinks she is her half identical twin Contractor brother), and the entry of a rival Contractor prevents him from harming her.

Of all people, Sir Crocodile in One Piece. By all appearances, he loves wanton cruelty. However, he pulls an epic move to save Luffy from an Admiral, with no reasoning given other than "If you're going to rescue someone, you should do it right, dammit!" Also an Enemy Mine situation.

Ed is saved from Pride by Kimblee of all people, who did so via weakening Pride at a critical moment. This was because Pride had violated his own belief system in order to win, which Kimblee viewed as disgraceful, and proof the Homunculi deserve to lose the war. Keep in mind that Kimblee was already dead at this point with no hope of revival.

Even Envy helped Ed out at one point, though he states that the reason behind this was for Envy's own good, not Ed's.

In Bleach Grimmjow saves Orihime from two arrancar girls who were beating her up, and then fends off Ulquiorra from trying to kill Ichigo again, in order to get the pleasure of killing Ichigo himself.

Kurotsuchi saving Ishida and Renji from Szayel is a version of this, since while they are all technically on the same side, Ishida considers Kurotsuchi his mortal enemy since he tortured his grandfather to death.

In Haruhi Suzumiya, Ryoko attempts to kill Kyon twice; the first time it's her normally and the second time it's her in an alternate reality. And Kyon nearly bleeds to death the second time. In the 10th novel, Ryoko comes up and saves Kyon from Suyoh, claiming that he's her prey. Not very calming, but eh. Kyon isn't dead yet, and Ryoko does put a lot of effort, like by throwing a knife at near-light speed and even after it's caught by Suyoh, it still vibrates rapidly, trying to move. That's a lot of kinetic energy.

Bando in Elfen Lied is an Ax-Crazy psychopath whose only goal in life is to find and kill Lucy/Nyu. But when the Hunter assaults Mayu, Bando comes to the rescue.

Happens in Dragon Ball Z When Vegeta saves Gohan and Krillin from Guldo before he could skewer them. Of course it was all in an effort to save his own hide. Possibly played straight later, when he saved Gohan from Frieza's latest attack. Note that he didn't think he needed Gohan anymore at that point but saved him anyway.

Happens again when he saves Goku from Android 19, kinda, sorta.

Giovanni saves Yellow from Lance during her arc of Pokémon Special. He leaves her to deal with everything that results from him appearing on the island (or, that is, his Gym Badge appearing), but he does save her from getting herself killed.

In the HGSS chapter, the first three Big Bads, Giovanni, Lance, and Pryce arrive at the Sinjoh Ruins to stop Team Rocket from taking control of Arceus and the Creation Trio.

Giovanni does it again in the ORAS chapter, rescuing Red and Blue. At the very least, he makes it clear he keeps doing this because he can't run a criminal organization if humanity gets wiped out.

Meowth, James and Inkay also helped Clemont save Ash's team after the Evil Malamar kidnapped them, Jessie and Wobbuffet in the XY episode, "Facing The Grand Design".

In Digimon Tamers, Makuramon essentially saves WarGrowlmon, Rapidmon, and Taomon from being destroyed by Juggernaut when he destroys Hypnos. Although to be fair Vikaralamon was also about to be destroyed.

On a similar note, Beelzemon, despite being even more evil than the Devas at the point after he kills Leomon, destroys Makuramon (one of the most evil Devas) and defeats Megidramon, who would have destroyed the world.

In One-Punch Man, Saitama is frantically searching for something heroic to do to keep his hero license from expiring, but things are too peaceful and he's becoming desperate. He is saved when Faster Than Sound Sonic, eager for a rematch with him, starts menacing the neighborhood to goad Saitama into attacking him. Saitama one-punches him and his hero-status is saved.

In Tiger & Bunny an Unpersoned Kotetsu, accused of murder, is saved from being arrested by the heroes by resident Vigilante Man Lunatic. The reason being that Lunatic does his homework into his potential victims, had previously researched Kotetsu, and knew he wasn't (or at least doubted he was) a murderer.

In D.Gray-Man, Tyki and Road save Allen from being absorbed by the Cardinal after he is imprisoned.

In Mai-HiME, when Nao abducts a powerless Natsuki on two occasions, Shizuru comes to the rescue, once before and once after descending into insanity over her feelings for Natsuki. In Mai's fight with Shiho, a Brainwashed and Face Heel TurnedMikoto intervenes by destroying Shiho's child, which unfortunately also kills Yuuichi

In Naruto, Orochimaru shows up out of the blue and stops Sasuke from killing Team Kakashi. Kabuto explains that Akatsuki is a more serious threat than Konoha, and if they let Team Kakashi live, said team will probably take out an Akatsuki member or two. Sasuke thinks that this is a pathetic reason for not killing them.

Fist of the North Star: Kenshiro's disastrous fight with Souther and almost rescue leaves him struggling in the middle of the desert, and bleeding to death. With his rescuer dead, Ken can only crawl blindly through a sandstorm, until his elder brother Raoh's soldiers happen upon him. They rescue him, dress his wounds and leave him at the doorstep of Ken's allies. Raoh informs the soldiers that he had them save Ken because he needs Kenshiro to defeat Souther, one of the few men that Raoh himself cannot defeat.

My Hero Academia: After the fight with Stain, a wounded Nomu grabs Deku and starts to fly off with him. Since Deku had previously demonstrated that he's the kind of hero Stain wants around, Stain uses the last of his strength to rescue him.

Berserk: During the battle of Doldrey in the Golden Age arc, Guts' sword breaks during a fight with the opposing general. Who does he see but the Immortal Zodd, who tosses him a sword. Zodd had two reasons for this; he considers Guts a Worthy Opponent and wants to fight him again, and to ensure the events of the Eclipse go off without a hitch.

Comics

Despite being villainous, Zodon and Victor VonFogg are still PS238 students and end up saving the world from an Alien Invasion (with Zodon using a moon-based superlaser to deal the finishing blow when everything else has failed). Victor ends up saving the world a second time when he manages to create a clone of Tyler to convince Prospero to not destroy the world in order to ensure no traces are left of the aforementioned invaders.

In a 1970s issue of Fantastic Four, a villain known as the Over-Mind telepathically took control of Mister Fantastic. This caused Doctor Doom to team up with the FF to try to defeat the Over-Mind.

Also, in one of the very early comics, this took the form of No Honor Among Thieves as Doctor Doom teamed up with Namor to get the Fantastic Four's home base (the Baxter Building) shot into space, only to try to abandon Namor to the vacuum of outer space along with the Fantastic Four because Doom wanted to eliminate all super-powered potential threats to his plans for world domination including Namor. With a little help from a tank of water the Fantastic Four had handy, Namor was able to power himself up enough to smash his way into Doom's ship and fling himout instead and then turn the ship around so they could all get safely back to Earth.

During the "Heart of the Monster" arc in the Incredible Hulks, Umar the Unrelenting stops yet another Hulk rampage by hauling him off to the Dark Dimension to ... calm him down.

In the X-Men graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, the X-Men are in the process of losing their first fight against the Purifiers, when all of a sudden the Purifiers' high-tech metal suits are shredded and turned into mummifying bonds. Enter the X-Men's then-foe, Magneto.

Magneto: Sheath your claws, Wolverine. Magneto is here as a friend... and, if you'll have me, an ally.

This is basically the plot of Forever Evil. The Crime Syndicate has captured the Justice League and taken over the world with an army of supervillains, and it's up to Lex Luthor and a handful of bad guys who aren't drinking the Kool-Aid to take them down, saving the Justice League in the process. This actually leads to Lex Luthor doing a Heel–Face Turn by the end, actually saving Superman's life on an operating table when he was under no obligation to otherwise.

And in AXIS, even the combined forces of the Avengers, the Uncanny Avengers and the X-Men - including the now renegade Cyclops, Magneto, Genesis and a teenage Jean Grey transported from the past are completely outmatched against the sheer might of the Red Skull. The same Red Skull, who had recently taken the brain of deceased X-Men founder Charles Xavier, and in addition to gaining his unmatched psychic powers, to make matters worse, recently ascended into the horrifying form of Red Onslaught) and his two colossal ADAMANTIUM Sentinels (constructed by Tony Stark of all people, albeit when he was brainwashed by the Red Skull earlier and didn't know it - which, in addition to their immense size and Nigh Invulnerability, were specially programmed to be able to easily capture each and every one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. In spite of their bravest and best attempts to take him down, each and every one of the heroes are captured and defeated in short order, leaving only Iron Man standing. Cue Magneto temporarily leaving, only to come back and save the day with an entire roster of Earth's Mightiest Villains - including Young Loki, DOCTOR DOOM, Carnage, Sabretooth, Mystique, Hobgoblin, Absorbing Man, Enchantress, Deadpool and Jack'O Lantern. Apparently, it seems that none of these supervillains (though some like Deadpool, Loki and Magneto himself were technically Anti-Heroes at the time) take kindly to the Red Onslaught's attempts to control the world. Even Carnage of all people, who freely admits to believing that a world ruled by Nazis sounds like 'fun', does NOT enjoy the idea of having to kowtow to Red Onslaught's twisted whims, even claiming it isn't 'country'. While the other villains occupy Red Onslaught and his Hero Killer Sentinels, Deadpool manages to get Iron Man to safety and to a nearby power line in order to recharge his Powered Armor. And as for the villains and anti-heroes facing Red Onslaught and his Sentinels? They rapidly take both Sentinels down (only struggling a bit against the latter one), free Scarlet Witch and Dr. Strange from their grasp (who, together, have the power to bring Xavier's personality to the fore in Red Onslaught through an 'Inversion' spell), and when Doctor Strange is suddenly knocked out once more - it falls upon Doctor Doom to take his place, and alongside Wanda, he manages to revert Red Onslaught to Red Skull once more, rendering him unconscious and defeated - and of course, freeing the other captured heroes and saving the world from Skull's telepathic broadcast of hate.

In Convergence #3, Earth 2 Dick Grayson is at the mercy of the pre-Flashpoint Joker until he is saved by Telos, who wants Dick alive because he demands to know the whereabouts of his Earth 2 companions.

Convergence: Crime Syndicate focuses on Superwoman's teammates rescuing her from death row.

Queen of All Oni: Despite knowing that doing so will drain his own power, delaying his escape from his prison, and also that she wants to usurp him, Tarakudo still helps save Jade from Lung (by transporting Left and Right to her location), because he simply can't allow one of his own kind to be tortured and killed by a mere human.

Mario and Sonic: Heroes Unite!: Metal Sonic saves Mario and Sonic from the Giant Bowser Mecha's missile attack in chapter 43—simply because Mario is necessary for his plan, nothing more.

Justice League of Equestria: a variation shows up in Mare of Steel; Luna saving Rainbow Dash/Supermare looks like a standard Big Damn Heroes moment, when really Brainiac tipped Luna off to Rainbow's whereabouts so she would be back out in the open and susceptible to his Evil Plan.

Odd example where the hero wasn't even aware of the rescue. During the alien invasion called Final Wars, a Kill Sat was targeting the grown up Godzilla Junior and would have taken him out if Xenilla hadn't destroyed the spacecraft and its entire fleet.

A crazed Kaiser Ghidorah is sent to the Equestria Girls realm, where he nearly murders Aria Blaze until he gets attacked by Bagan's avatar Enjin, who intends to kill him and give his power to Bagan.

The Monster X vs. Ultraman Belial special has the Xilian high command sic Monster X on Ultraman Belial, unknowingly saving the life of Ultrawoman Corona when Belial had her at his mercy due to Monster X's asteroid prison slamming into Belial.

Some weeks later, when Avalina falls into cold water and is close to drowning, the Horned King dives into it to save her, fully aware of the pain water causes him.

Months later again, Avalina is captured by a group of thugs who have been kidnapping children and selling them into illegal slavery (in addition to killing them). Just when they get fed up with her and are close to killing her, the Horned King (their former master) teleports there with Creeper and Addie the gwythaint. They free her and kill all the thugs while she flees back to the Horned King's castle.

The whole point of the Dragon Ball Z fanfic ''Frigid Future: a reborn Red Ribbon, led by Commander Red turned into an Android and supported by the first generation of Androids (minus Eighter), has conquered most of Earth and killed the Z Fighters except for Gohan and Trunks, Androids 17 and 18 (AKA the Devil's Pair), after helping killing Goku, are running amok on both the Red Ribbon and the few free humans remaining... And then Cooler, who had been busy for thirteen years asserting his rule after his father and brother's death, arrives to Earth to restore his family honor by killing Goku, and upon finding out he's been killed he targets the Devil's Pair and Android 1 for stealing his prey, and equips the Resistance with PTO armor and blasters so they'll keep the Red Ribbon and the other Androids from interfering. Even him making a truce with Gohan even knowing he's a Super Saiyan and then going after Cell come back to his original motivation: he can respect Gohan and can reason with him, so he's simply postponing their final showdown to after the death of the Devil's Pair, and Cell having been made out of the DNA of, among others, his family and their soldiers is just another insult to his family honor.

In the Mass Effect seriesOf Sheep And Battle Chicken, Aria does this to Liara and Aethyta after their near-death experience trying to rescue Shepard's body from the Shadow Broker. Her motive is purely personal and malicious... she points Liara at the people responsible for Shepard's death, and forces Aethyta to watch her daughter go off the deep end in her quest for vengeance. This is done to get back at Aethyta for murdering Aria's lover and unborn child centuries prior, and was done because being forced to watch the Shrinking Violet Liara turn into a Sociopathic Hero was one of the cruelest things she could think of to torture Aethyta with.

Films — Animated

Played with in Megamind: Megamind rescues Roxanne and all of Metro City from Tighten, but by that point Megamind was well on his way to completing his Heel–Face Turn.

The Powerpuff Girls Movie: The girls, lost and unwilling to use their superpowers, are saved from the Gangreen Gang by a mysterious monkey hobo named Jojo. They even end up befriending him and working together to make the town they live in better. Unfortunately, it's revealed later on that he's been lying to them all along, using their powers to concoct a horribly evil plan. He even declares his intentions to take over the town and world as the villain Mojo Jojo while they watch in horror. Due to the movie's nature as a prequel to the show, this reveal is a Foregone Conclusion.

Films — Live-Action

Towards the end of Alvin and the ChipmunksChipwrecked, Zoe, after being convinced by the reformed Ian Hawke, saves Dave from falling off a log.

Jaguar Paw, fleeing from his captors, finds to his horror that the tree he climbed contains a mewing jaguar cub and its ticked off mother. Jaguar Paw jumps out the tree as his hunters find him, but the jaguar intercepts their chase, killing one of the hunters and slowing down the others.

A bigger example occurs near the end of the film, as the brutal yet decaying Mayan Empire is about to meet some Scary Dogmatic Spaniards. Jaguar Paw and his family, however, escape for a new beginning.

In The Amazing Spider-Man, the Lizard saves Spider-Man from falling off of a building after his Lizard-ness starts to wear off and he regains his mind.

Barbarella: The evil Black Queen is introduced saving our helpless eponymous heroine from two men who have cornered her in an alley, likely to rape her, by driving her knives into their backs. The reason why she'd do this is because she wants (consensual) sex from Barbarella (which she nonetheless refuses). Later the Queen saves Barbarella again from a suicide booth she had accidentally walked into. And at the end of the movie, the Queen saves the entire universe by killing Durand Durand, who wanted to be the despot of the entire universe.

Near the end of A Bronx Tale, as Calogero is riding with his violent, dimwitted, racist gangster friends on their way to commit arson, the mafia boss Sonny (who is something of an Evil Mentor to Calogero) accosts them and forces Calogero to get out of the car. Everyone else in the car that night died when a victim of theirs essentially did a Catch and Return of one of the Molotov Cocktails they were using for the arson.

District 9: Gang leader pulls variety #3 and saves Wikus from the MNU mercenaries because he wants to eat Wikus' prawn arm.

Jason actually pulls this off a few times in the Friday the 13th series. For one, Rennie is being attacked by two gang bangers and Jason kills them (and proceeds to try and kill her afterward) in Jason Takes Manhattan. And who could forget the scene in Freddy vs. Jason when Jason stabs Freddy with his own clawed glove as he is about to kill Lori and Will.

In Lord of the Rings, near the very end, Gollum pulls an unusual villainous rescue, where he saves Frodo from the manipulative powers of The One Ring. Just as Frodo is about to give in to the ring's influence, Gollum, motivated solely by his desire to take the ring for himself, appears and forcefully removes the ring from Frodo's hand. As the two of them fight over the ring, Gollum tumbles into the lava below with the ring in hand, destroying the ring and saving the world.

Doesn't go too well in Lottery Ticket. The hero (and lottery winner) Kevin stares down neighborhood bully Lorenzo, who aims to take his money. Sweet Tea, a feared, vicious crime boss who has "invested" (so to speak) in Kevin attacks Lorenzo, slamming him into a table. Lorenzo simply gets up and squeezes Sweet Tea's testicles'till they pop, and beats Kevin ruthlessly. Don't worry though, he's saved by a reclusive ex-boxer he befriended.

In Machete Kills, the shape-shifting assassin El Chameleon is pursuing Machete when he is suddenly attacked and gunned down by racist vigilantes because he was in the form of a Mexican at the time.

Ransom. When Mullen goes on television saying he's not going to pay up, offering the ransom money as a reward instead for anyone who turns in the kidnappers, Shaker has to rush out to the forest where his gang are already digging a grave for Sean and stop them murdering him. Then when further attempts to get the ransom fail, Shaker murders his fellow conspirators and 'rescues' Sean, hoping to claim the reward money.

John Harrison aka Khan from Star Trek Into Darkness saves Kirk, Spock, and Uhura from a group of irate Klingons and then takes the brunt of the ensuing battle for them, since he can kick ten kinds of ass easier than they can and needs them alive because they've got his torpedoes. He also offers Kirk information about Section 31 that turns out to have been necessary to save the Enterprise from destruction - it eventually becomes an Enemy Mine situation.

First, Marshall bails Alan Stu and Phil out of jail and brings them back to the mansion they broke into earlier, which turns out to be his and not Chow's, who is revealed to have tricked The Wolfpack into stealing the second half of the gold from Marshall that he didn't steal earlier.

Second, Chow saves The Wolfpack from being killed by Marshall in the climax by shooting the latter and his men courtesy of Alan freeing him from the trunk of the car and handing him his gun.

Near the end of War for the Planet of the Apes, Red after pulling a Heel–Face Turn saves Caesar by killing Preacher and allowing Caesar to escape back to save his fellow apes. Unfortunately, Red is killed by a nearby soldier as punishment for going against the Alpha Omega to save Caesar.

The Dark Crystal: When the Garthims attack the Podling village, the only reason Jen and Kira manage to escape is because the Chamberlain interferes and holds off the Garthims. However, that is purely because he wants to gain their trust so he can personaly bring them to the castle.

Literature

In Louis Sachar's Holes, Stanley spends a few minutes here and there fantasizing about going back to his old school, with his newly acquired hole-digging muscles and possibly some of his newly acquired friends, and getting revenge on Derrick Dunne. In the end, Derrick provides Stanley with the alibi that gets him out of Camp Green Lake.

To sum up what Ryoko does in Haruhi Suzumiya, the tenth novel, she basically says to Suyoh, "Don't you fucking dare kill him! He's mine, bitch!" This is followed by Ryoko starting the fight with a knife flying at near-light speed to Suyoh. Things get epic, really fast. And no, Ryoko doesn't put her body on the line to protect Kyon.

In the first book, at the battle at the climax, the Alerans are saved from one horde of Marat barbarians by another horde of Marat barbarians, because Doroga hates Atsurak much more than he disdains the Alerans and Tavi won the challenge against Atsurak, so he had an excuse. They don't stay villains for long, though.

In both the second and third books, High Lady Aquitaine, who wants to take over Alera, helps the current lord resist another would-be ruler, because she can't conquer the country if someone else already has.

From the fourth book on, the Canim, who have been enemies of Alerans forever, work together with them against the Vord, a much more powerful and monstrous enemy. In Canim culture a respected enemy is considered even more valuable and reliable than a friend, so to humans, successful diplomacy between or within Canim basically looks like one after another all the time.

In Titans of Chaos by John C. Wright, this is used twice in the same battle: when Hermes has cornered and badly wounded all the Children, Ares and Mulciber show up to stop him. Then, as they are about to arrest the Children, Echidna arrives to avenge her son's death, distracting Ares long enough for them to escape.

In Shadows of the Empire it looks like curtains for the heroes, Xizor has them surrounded and massively outgunned. Cue the arrival of the Imperials, who not only reduce Xizor's force to a smouldering heap (and kill Xizor himself), they actually let the Rebels go - they'd fire on Rebel ships that crossed into their sights, and if the Rebels hadn't fled before Xizor's forces were mopped up they'd probably have been next, but the Millennium Falcon and a dozen X-Wings were not high priority.

Galaxy of Fear: City of the Dead has Boba Fett saving Zak's life twice - once by shooting Doctor Evazam, once by digging him up after he was Buried Alive - but it's because he wanted the bounty on Evazam in the first instance, and in the second he needed some information Zak had. Later in the series he has no qualms about hunting Zak on Vader's orders.

At the end of A Crown of Swords, Rand chases his current Forsaken target, Sammael, to the deadly abandoned city of Shadar Logoth. He almost plummets to his death inside a building there, but is saved by Moridin, who's the series Big Bad.

At the end of Barb Hendee's Memories of Envy, Eleisha is about to be killed by Simone when who should kick in the door and charge to the rescue? Philip? Wade? Some other member of Eleisha's Nakama? Nope. Juliansaves her.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, the resident Magnificent Bastard and, potentially, Big Bad, Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish, rescues Sansa Stark from imprisonment in King's Landing by the Lannisters, spirits her away to his newly acquired lands, and disguises her as his bastard daughter, keeping her safe from arrest and potential execution for a crime which, as it turns out, he committed and intentionally implicated her in. This appears to be for three reasons—to use her political claims, to train her as his successor in Magnificent Bastardry, and because he's into her.

The Agent Pendergast novels has Pendergast being saved by his brother Diogenes at the end of the novel Brimstone. Pendergast is sealed inside a wall to die by that novel's antagonist, and Diogenes manages to successfully break him out of his tomb at the very end and nurse him back to health by the time of the next book. Though it is because Diogenes needs his brother alive since part of the big crime he's planning includes murdering people close to him and then setting him up as the killer.

In Animorphs, Visser Three assists the heroes twice due to a common enemy. In #36 The Mutation, he activates the Sea Blade and lets the Animorphs pilot it out of the Nartec city. In #37 The Weakness, he gets so fed up with the Inspector, an arrogant and untouchable supervisor who has been giving a very bad report about Visser Three to his superiors, that he distracts him by groveling so the Animorphs can sneak up and defeat him.

Visser Three's rival, Visser One, pulls this earlier in #5 The Predator when her troops secretly set the Animorphs free, so that their escape will be blamed on Visser Three.

An interesting inversion in Les Misérables: The cop infiltrates the rebels, where he is subsequently discovered and captured. Out of nowhere, the escaped convict who had eluded him for years shows up, is given the opportunity to execute him, and releases him instead. But Wait... in this story, the cop is the villain and the convict is the hero, making it a case of Save the Villain instead.

Prince of the City, by Robert Daley. Two crooks hear a rumor that the protagonist is working with the DA to expose corruption, and grab him off the street to interrogate, then kill him. On two occasions he's able to get to a phone, call the DA's office and give a Covert Distress Code, but it isn't recognised. Suddenly he sees a member of The Mafia nearby who'll vouch for him. The mafiosi says, "If you think he's a rat, then you should kill him, but if you kill him you better be sure he's a rat, 'cause he's a friend of ours".

When Clove is on top of a nearly helpless Katniss in The Hunger Games, she decides to taunt the latter a bit, saying how they enjoyed killing Rue. Thresh then shows up out of nowhere, and kills Clove after hearing her confession. He then walks away, saying he was doing this favor just once for Rue, who was the female participant from his district, and one of the few friends Katniss made.

Second Apocalypse: Skin-spies are monstrous shapechangers who Kill and Replace their victims and spy for the villainous Consult. One of them saves Mimara's life twice, at great sacrifice to itself. She has no idea why it does so, whether it somehow gained a conscience or is just a tool for some deeper game the Consult is playing.

The White Queen of The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign does this to Kyousuke on several occasions, due to being in love with him. Notably, one particular instance of this is the main reason why Kyousuke hates her so much. The White Queen was the target of an army of summoners and their summoned beings, while an unconscious Kyousuke was lying next to her. To prevent him dying in the crossfire, she wiped out the entire army.

Angel: Mesektet's last act was saving Angel and Co. from The Beast during its attack on Wolfram and Hart.

Deadly Games. In which villains from the hero's video game appeared in the real world Monster of the Week style. Brent Spiner's villainous prankster character had been snuck into the game by an associate of the hero, so just as the booby-trapped VCR is seconds away from going kaboom, the Jackal, aka Christopher Lloyd, calmly ejects the tape. Turns out he didn't see the Easter Egg character as being one of his, and as he put it, "I couldn't let an outsider to do the honors."

Tywin has a sort of Big Damn Heroes moment in "Garden of Bones", wherein he stops Gendry's torture (and by the extension the continued torture of other captives) on the grounds that it is a waste of good workers.

Littlefinger arrives with Arryn forces at Jon's attack on Bolton-occupied Wintefell, having come at the plea of Sansa.

In Power Rangers Zeo, Rita and Zedd interrupt the Machines' impending capture of Jason. The Machines want Jason's Gold Ranger powers, which are becoming unstable. Rita and Zedd just want to stick it to the Machines. Jason sneaks away from both sets of baddies while they're busy fighting each other. This also happens when Tommy gets kidnapped and brainwashed by King Mondo. Rita and Zedd come to the rescue here too by teleporting the rest of the Rangers to where Tommy is being held. It's pretty apparent that Rita and Zedd hate the Machine Empire even more so than the Rangers themselves.

Also, Power Rangers in Space has Ecliptor save Andros from Darkonda's booby trap (not for his sake, but because Astronema was starting to remember Andros, and he felt it wouldn't be good for her for him to be vaporized just now.)

Another instance in Power Rangers Time Force where a particularly strong mutant named Venomark is turned lose by Frax and bites four of the Rangers, poisoning them with his deadly venom. Wes was saved by Ransik, who has a grudge against Venomark for poisoning him prior to the series and forcing him to constantly drink a serum to stay alive (not that the effects of being poisoned frequently saved the Power Rangers in earlier episodes when he was about to kill them).

Doctor Who: In "The End of Time", the Master saves the Doctor from death by what is almost definitely called the Glove of Rassilon by shooting Rassilon with his life-energy fueledlightning bolts. He's repaying the Doctor for not killing him earlier, and getting revenge on Rassilon for driving him crazy.

This is pretty much a way of life for the Master, although his motives are often less than pure. In "Frontier in Space", he rescues the Doctor when a corrupt prison governor has left him to suffocate in an airlock, mainly because he doesn't want the Doctor to die without knowing he's beaten him. In the last segment of "The Trial of a Time Lord", he rescues the Doctor when he's on the verge of being gassed by the Valeyard because he considers the Valeyard the bigger threat... although he promptly uses the Doctor as live bait to ambush the Valeyard. And in "The Five Doctors" he is happy to try and rescue the Doctor from the Death Zone, including telling the First Doctor how to beat the chessboard trap, when the Time Lords offer him a new regeneration cycle as payment.

Earlier, in the fourth and final part of "The Tenth Planet", General Cutler comes close to murdering the Doctor and his friends for foiling his plot to destroy Mondas (which would likely have irradiated Earth in the process), when a squad of Cybermen appear and kill him. This trope is also the Cybermen's plan for humanity. At least, under a different definition of "rescue".

In the season 2 finale of The Mentalist, some Mad Artists are about to kill Patrick for their Red-John-inspired film when the real Red John shows up and takes them out because he's pissed at them for imitating him and for daring to try to kill his personal favorite play-toy, Patrick Jane.

After the entire Justice League gets captured by the VRA goons in Smallville all hope seems lost...until the Suicide Squad pops up to save their asses.

In Primeval episode 1x05, Claudia is trapped in a house, partially blind, while a swarm of violent carnivorous pterosaurs are flying around and hunting her down by following the scent of the blood she's covered in. She's saved by Helen Cutter. It should be noted that Helen had not yet had her Start of Darkness and was in fact more of an anti-hero than anything.

666 Park Avenue: Jane is saved from Peter Kramer's ghost when the birds in the walls of the Drake attack and rekill him.

In the episode "The Song Remains the Same" (S05, E13), Anna and Uriel are easily trouncing the Winchesters, and have killed Sam, when Michael pops in to save them, defeating the lesser angels with about as much effort as it takes to blink. He then resurrects Sam and returns the two of them safely to their motel room. Why? Because the angels need Sam and Dean alive for their Apocalypse, which Michael gives a big, sanctimonious speech about.

In a season seven episode, Meg of all people steps in to help Dean against a demon, because she currently needs the allies and knows the Winchesters will work with her.

Likewise, in season ten Metatron saves Castiel from an attacking angel because he wants to get back on Cas's good side. It doesn't work.

New knockout Havok had been ambushing the established ones in TNA, particularly Gail Kim and Taryn Terrell. In 2015, the two got some much needed help from an unexpected source. Awesome Kong.

A "villain" saving villains from other villains at the 2015 WWN Mercury Rising. SoCal Val had already sicked the Premier Athlete brand on an injured Rich Swann and the Canadian Ninja's were in for a similar trashing from her "insurance policy" Andrea for losing a match only to be "rescued" by a vengeful Nikki Storm, who was also targeted by Val earlier.

Tabletop Games

This is pretty much the premise of the Necessary Evil RPG. A supers game set in an Expy of the Marvel Universe, the campaign begins after alien invaders kill pretty much every superhero on the planet. Who's left to fight them? The supervillains, of course, led by Doctor Destruction. Although it turns out that it's actually a superhero called the Aquarian in Destruction's Powered Armor.

Happens a lot more frequently than you'd expect in Warhammer 40,000, considering the universe is populated almost entirely with xenocidal Knight Templars. The Eldar practically have saving the imperials as their hat, if only to use them as cannon fodder in some later scheme.

In once case Craftworld Iyanden was getting swamped by Orks, so they call even more Wraithguards/Wraithlords in desperation. Then two Kabals of Dark Eldar came in and aided the Eldar fight off the Orks, their reason they were amused enough of Iyandens angst ridden desperation in calling the dead to fight.

Sometimes, Tyranids will avoid eating worlds they come across, and the people below celebrate... unaware that their planet is really a Necron Tomb World just waiting to be activated.

In one particularly hilarious subversion, a Tau world was under attack from a Tyranid splinter fleet. A Necron fleet appeared in orbit and proceeded to slaughter everything alive. The Tau celebrated, and as the Necrons landed, sent a welcoming party with their highest Ethereals. The Necrons proceeded to slaughter everything alive.

This also comes up in Warhammer Fantasy. The Vampire Counts have been known to jump in and help the Empire if the forces of Chaos and the Skaven threaten them sufficiently. After all, they're vampires, and vampires need living mortal prey to snack on... What ever will they do if all the warm walking blood-bags are killed off?

While that applies for most vampires, some such as Vlad von Carstein are Well-Intentioned Extremist who want to convert everyone to vampires so as to starve Chaos (they can't feed off the emotions of the undead.)

Video Games

In Super Robot Wars 3, Anavel Gato's claim to fame in his show of origin is launching a stolen nuke at a peace conference. He reenacts this scene in the game, but this time the "peace conference" is between two villainous factions, meaning that his actions have prevented a very dangerous Villain Team-Up.

As a subversion of being the Fake Defector, Archer from Fate/stay night pulls off one of these, effortlessly killing Caster and Kuzuki Souichirou before trapping a powerless Saber and trying to kill Shirou.

More straight example would be the first appearance of Gilgamesh in the Fate arc of the game - when Caster had Shirou and Saber in the palm of her hand the enigmatic Golden Servant appeared and sadistically executed her because he already decided that King of Knights is his prize and was enraged by the fact that Caster dared to assume she can make Saber hers.

The SA-X at the end of Metroid: Fusion stepped in and attacked the Omega Metroid just before it destroyed Samus, although in this case the rescue was because the X parasites were the natural enemy of the Metroids, and it failed to destroy the Omega anyway, but when the X was destroyed instead it gave Samus back her Ice beam which allowed her to defeat the Omega.

in AdventureQuest WorldsDrakath pulls this when Nessie is trying to attack The Hero unnoticed Drakath stops Nessie from killing The Hero.

Etna pulls one off in Disgaea 2 to save the party from fake Zenon. She is not happy about it. It borders on Big Damn Heroes as well, due to being a playable character later and a protagonist of the first game, but she's treated as a secondary villain and serious threat to the protagonists' plans at this point in the story, and rightfully so as she manages to kill, or nearly kill, the fake Zenon in this encounter and she is the highest level opponent, at level 1000, the party will face (that isn't a bonus boss) aside from Laharl.

In Mass Effect 2, Cerberus, an organization you spent several sidequests fighting (since they prove themselves to be Well-Intentioned Extremist at best) in Mass Effect, is responsible for bringing Shepard back to life in the sequel. They also provide support and resources to Shepard at a time when the Council and Alliance are eager to wash their hands off the whole "Reaper invasion" affair, to the point that their behavior could be seen as a Heel–Face Turn. However, this gets decisively subverted in Mass Effect 3, wherein they are once again actively causing problems for Shepard, and it is revealed that they deliberately doctored their behavior to appear more sympathetic and keep Shepard invested in the alliance..

In the sequel, she rescues the Hawke family from the massacre of Lothering in exchange for a simple delivery to an area close by the city they already decided to escape to.

Also in the sequel, Knight-Commander Meredith, the Act III Big Bad and Final Boss, saves Hawke and his companions from being electrocuted to death by a Qunari Saarebas by decapitating him.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Solas is in your party attempting to stop Corypheus from sundering the Veil and destroying the world. He provides you with invaluable help throughout the game, but at the end of the final DLC reveals that he's actually got a very similar world-destroying plan and just didn't want Corypheus to beat him to it. He still saves you from a malfunctioning magical mark, though, in one final villain rescue after revealing his true nature.

From their perspective, this happened to the Altmer (High Elves) in the backstory. Still reeling from the Curb-Stomping they received at the hands of Tiber Septim and the Numidium, the Altmer were left vulnerable to their other ancient enemy, the Maormer (Sea Elves) of Pyandonea. With the Maormer overrunning the Summerset Isles, the Altmer had to accept assistance from the hated Empire to survive. It is said that the Altmer remember these incidents with "shame and horror," contributing to their discontent. And being the most Long-Lived of the already long-lived Mer races, many who lived through these events were still alive when the Septim Dynasty ended and led the charge for independence and reformation of the AldmeriDominion.

Skyrim features an accidental instance at the beginning of the game. Big Bad Alduin swoops in to kill the Player Character at the beginning of the game, but not only does he fail to hit the player, he also throws off the balance of an executioner who is literally moments away from executing the PC. Alduin didn't intend for the PC to survive, but through his own actions, gives the the PC a chance to escape. Had he simply done nothing, the only real threat to him would have been helplessly executed. (Possibly justified, or at least excused, given that Alduin's colossal Pride probably made him want to be the one to kill the Last Dragonborn directly.)

In the True Ending of Asura's Wrath, the Golden Spider rescues Mithra from Olga. It's a villainous rescue because the Spider only did it to because he wants to possess Mithra. At the same time he also reveals that he is responsible for the appearance of the Gohma.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has this in the 8 bit versions. The platform is too far away, and Sonic falls to his doom. At the last second, he is saved by Robotnik, who would rather have his robot defeat him than letting Sonic burn into a crisp.

Kingdom Hearts II has a point where Organization XIII reveals the Sadistic Choice Sora has to make (this being that if he defeats the heartless, thus saving the innocents in the worlds, the Organization collects the hearts to grow closer to their final goal), and he is subsequently reluctant to fight anymore. This almost results in him, Donald, and Goofy being overwhelmed by the Heartless until Maleficent helps them escape. Her given reason is along the lines that the Nobodies and the Organization were a bigger pain than Sora, and that she wanted them gone before she bothered with revenge. It happens again during the game's final level. Same villain, even.

In the Corneria level of Star Fox: Assault, Fox is about to get into his Arwing and rejoin his teammates in the skies above after destroying several radar jammers. Suddenly, the ship is destroyed and he's surrounded by Aparoids, only to be saved by none other than Wolf O'Donnell and the rest of Team Star Wolf. Wolf says that he's only helping Fox because he plans to kill him later.

In Star Wars: The Old Republic, there are several occasions where Light Sided Imperial characters can choose to intervene to rescue Jedi or Republic troops from danger. Naturally, these often lead to a lot of confusion from the people rescued, especially if the player happens to be Sith.

In the last Episode of Umineko: When They Cry, Erika of all people swoops in to save Ange from the Goats. Lambdadelta also risks herself to save Battler and Ange from Bernkastel and Featherine.

An odd example occurs in Pokémon Platinum. Big BadCyrus is about to destroy the universe to create one "without spirit", when a portal opens and Giratina pops out to stop him. While Giratina is not villainous per se, it is the Pokémon world's resident Satan analogue, yet it effectively does this for all of existence. Sort of. It does start ripping reality to shreds by accident.

Asakim Dowin from the Super Robot Wars Z series will occasionally lend a hand to the heroes when they are having a hard time, but then again he is properly up to something.

In Kid Icarus: Uprising: after Hades destroys the Great Sacred Treasure, he's poised to finish off Pit in one final attack. Then, out of nowhere, Medusa, the former queen of the underworld, socks him in the face.

Halo 5: Guardians: The main villain, Cortana, does this multiple times for John-117 and Blue Team by restricting the Warden Eternal's actions because she still loves John and wants to seal away John until she's done purging the galaxy of dissenters rather than kill him.

Minecraft: Story Mode: If you go to Boom Town and beat Magnus in a duel and as a result become King, some people will start to consider usurping you. Then the Wither Storm shows up to level everything to the ground (in a way that puts even Magnus to shame) and snack on the inhabitants.

Happens in the finale of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric during the final boss. Lyric finally figures out Sonic and friends have been using his tech against him and uses it to capture the team. Cue him getting hit by a missile, Sonic and friends being set free, and a certain heavily damaged Humongous Mecha weakly standing up on the cliff:

Eggman: Got him! Heh-heh...

There's an infamous moment in Hotel Mario, where Roy kidnaps Princess Peach, but he also saves her from falling from a tree and potentially breaking her neck.

At the start of the game, Reviel saves Luna from a group of bandits, but mainly because they tried to mug him rather than because he wanted to save the girl. He's also a Villain Protagonist who plans on destroying Luna's village when he feels like it, but this causes him to protect it from another vampire trying to steal his "prey." This is deconstructed when the village mistakenly believes he's a hero, and then reconstructed when he grows to care about them and protects them from Devils without any ulterior motive.

When the village of Algiz is set on fire by Devils, Ristill summons rain to put it out in order to repay her debt to Luna.

Regulus from Bomberman 64 saves Bomberman from the vaporizing attack of Sirius and even destroys the Omni Cube. He then teams up with Bomberman to take down Sirius once and for all. Regulus then reveals that he only help out Bomberman because he's the only one allowed to defeat them and says that they will fight again someday.

in Mario And Luigi Bowsers Inside Story, The kingdom is about to vanish, the heroes are trapped and cannot face the impending doom themselves, and there is no army strong enough to defeat the threat, who else saves the Mushroom Kingdom? Bowser does.

Dark Bowser: Still here? Has the dark power not crushed your puny hopes? Soon this kingdom will vanish along with all who dwell within. And you, too, will sleep eternally in the dark power's embrace.

Bowser: GWAHAHA! Great dark hurricane! Seriously, perfect backdrop for an awesome final battle! You really sweat the details! Listen up! You're saying the kingdom will vanish? NOT TODAY! THIS KINGDOM IS ALL MINE! SO YOU VANISH!

Webcomics

Monkey Master leads the Aliens in combat against the Martians in It's Walky!'s Final Battle, having decided that their chances of returning home (or at least surviving the Martian invasion) in Head Alien's absence higher if they worked with SEMME.

In Emergency Exit, Lord Kyran and crew lead an effort to rescue Eddie from being sacrificed, mostly because they figure he's about to find an artifact.

Beyond the Canopy. Glenn and Glade are about to be crushed by a giant robot, then someone offscreen blasts a hole in the robot's chest. Said someone turns out to be a lackey of the Baron, come to take an artifact from Glenn, and to enslave Glenn and everyone else in the vicinity.

In Worm, this occurs when the Wards and Protectorate are fighting the Slaughterhouse 9 and doing poorly — Skitter shows up on a giant flying beetle with a bandolier of grenades.

And at the climax of the story, Taylor herself is saved from Scion by the Endbringers.

In the final battle of Volume 2 of RWBY, Mercury and Emerald join in the fight against the Grimm attacking the city when it was part of their plot for the incident to happen, in this case most likely to help keep their cover story as out of kingdom huntsmen active. Didn't hurt their reputation to be the ones who 'captured' the 'big bad' and bring him into custody.

Western Animation

Rocket Power: During a sand castle contest, the heroes' submission, a model amusement park, which they had spent the whole episode on, is threatened by the rising tide. They're powerless to stop the water from destroying it before it gets judged, when suddenly, one of the characters' older brother shows up with his cronies, and they protect the model with their surfboards.

Later on, Mai, one-third of Azula's Quirky Miniboss Squad, turns against Azula, her own uncle, and pretty much every guard in the prison in order to save the Gaang, though specifically her ex-boyfriend. For added awesome, it doubles as a Heel–Face Turn.

Also shows up (somewhat) in the Sequel SeriesThe Legend of Korra; Tarrlok captures Korra and plans to leave the city with her as a hostage, but then Amon and his Equalists arrive at Tarrlok's hideout, and the ensuing confrontation allows Korra a chance to escape.

In ReBoot, Megabyte teams up with Bob and co against The Web because the web creatures are dangerous for everyone. He backstabs Bob later, though.

Cartman rescues Kyle's family from the about-to-be-destroyed San-Francisco, because he misses picking on Kyle.

In The Transformers, Starscream saved the day in the episode "Enter the Nightbird", when he used his null-ray to deactivate a female-ninja-robot (the Nightbird from the title) who was successfully attacking the Autobots. His motivation: Megatron demoted him and placed her in his place, so he was obviously jealous. And when he protested, the other Deceptions imprisioned him. No surprise he got really pissed off at them.

Megatron of Transformers Prime prevented his version of Starscream from landing a potentially lethal blow to Optimus both because he intends to defeat Prime himself and because he intends to pay his treacherous underling back for an attempt on his life.

He does it again in the Season One finale. This time by taking out the Unicron-Colossus that was giving the Autobots trouble.

Starscream even gets one in, himself. He saves Arcee from being killed by Airachnid and even decides to not kill her himself, presumably because he was in a good mood after hitting Airachnid with one of his shots.

One episode sees the villains of the week (the Gangreen Gang) defeated by Mojo Jojo, Fuzzy Lumpkins and Him, since the Powerpuff Girls themselves never realize what's actually going on (namely that said Gang used the Mayor's emergency phone to prank call the Powerpuff Girls into beating up villains who weren't doing anything). The narrator seems uncomfortable with making his usual Once per Episodedeclaration, given who saved that particular day.

Sorta example in the episode ''Gang Land", where the current Big Bad Tombstone is in a three way fight with Doctor Octopus and Silverman. When Spider-Man decides to get involved to stop collateral damage from the fight, Dr. Octopus suggests a temporary truce between the three villains so they can kill Spider-Man, since he's the cause of most of their problems. Tombstone rejects, wanting to stay a Villain with Good Publicity and can't do that if he fights Spider-Man in public, and actually saves Spider-Man from Dr. Octopus. It's only a partial case since when both Spider-Man and Tombstone fall into a sewer and out of view of everyone, he and Spider-Man start fighting.

Played straight when Spider-Man and the Rhino team up to destroy the specs for the Rhino suit. Spider-Man doesn't want to have to fight an army of Rhinos, and Rhino doesn't want to have to compete with them.

In the Teen Titans episode "Masks", Robin nearly falls off a building during a fight with Slade, only for Slade to prevent it. Slade's then-excuse is that he's "not done with (him)" and continues the fight. In a later episode, Slade reveals that the real reason he doesn't want Robin dead is because he wants him as his apprentice.

Slade does it again in Season 4 when he helps the Titans kill Trigon, because the world isn't much use to him if Trigon is already ruling it.

In Phineas and Ferb, Dr Doofenshmirtz often does this while fighting a Greater-Scope Villain. He recovered a stray kittie, defeated The Regurgitator, stopped Liam Mcracken from killing Perry,rescued Phineas Ferb and Perry from being crushed by his Evil Counterpart and saved the Earth from being plunged into a new Ice Age by Rodney.

In the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, Tiamat's main purpose seemed to be to save the kids from Venger. This wasn't intentional. Most of the time she probably didn't even notice they were there. She just had a tendency to show up and try to kill Venger right when he had the heroes cornered.

Played for laughs: In the Daffy Duck cartoon "Daffy Doodles," Daffy (as the cartoon's antagonist) pulls officer Porky Pig back from falling over the side of a building during a chase. "Awfully sporting of the little black duck!"

In The Venture Bros., the Monarch and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch step in to claim Doctor Venture for himself right before dozens of members of the Guild Of Calamitous Intent and its leading councilmen lowered him into a vat of acid. They succeed thanks Dr. Mrs.' rules lawyering against the leaders of the guild themselves, and further wind up accidentally saving Brock and Shore Leave, who were simultaneously attempting a much riskier, separate rescue.

In the ThunderCats (1985) episode "Shadowmaster", Mumm-Ra secretly helps Lion-O defeat the Shadowmaster, only because he was scared that he would be replaced as the Ancient Spirits of Evil's champion.

In the Invader Zim episode "The Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom", Zim rescues Dib from the Halloween monsters, only to abandon Dib once more after Zim escapes back into their own dimension.

In the Street Fighter episode "Strange Bedfellows", Guile and M.Bison are lured into a trap by Akuma, forcing them to work together in order to escape. During the proceedings, Guile loses his footing on the edge of a volcano and plummets towards certain death, only to be saved at the last minute by Bison. When questioned why, Bison simply states that whilst he'd have loved to see Guile burn to death, he needs him alive in case Akuma proves too strong for him to take on alone. At the end of the episode, Zangief prepares to shoot Guile from Bison's helicopter, only for the dictator (in one of the cheesiest moments in the series) to decline the opportunity.

In the X-Men season 1 finale, Professor X is flying the Blackbird in the fight against the Sentinels. The plane is shot down and about to crash, when it suddenly stops, suspended in mid-air...

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